What is FGC?

Female genital cutting (FGC) is a harmful practice involving the full or partial removal, or injury to a girl’s external genitals. On average, girls are subjected to FGC before the age of five, although this varies between different communities and can happen at any time from a girl’s birth to her adolescence.

FGC is not an obligation of any religion and has no known health benefits. Far from it, the practice can cause long-lasting physical and psychological damage for more than 200 million women and girls who are affected worldwide. In some cases, this can include death.

FGC is a global concern

It is estimated that more than 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital cutting. This figure is based on the 32 countries that measure and report on the practice, across three continents. We know, however, that girls are affected by FGC in over 90 countries globally, so this figure underestimates the true scale of the practice. FGC takes place in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and also within diaspora communities around the world.

Estimates suggest 4.1 million girls a year are at risk of being cut. And although global efforts to encourage communities to abandon FGC are making strong progress, population growth means the number of girls at risk of being cut continues to increase.

Also referred to as female genital mutilation (FGM) and female circumcision, the practice of cutting is recognised internationally as a violation of human rights, the rights of the child and women’s rights.

What FGC entails

Female genital cutting as a term encompasses a range of harmful procedures that involve partial or total removal of a girl’s external genitals, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

FGC can often be carried out by ‘traditional practitioners’, such as birth attendants, who have little or no access to information about human rights and no medical training or knowledge of the potentially dangerous medical and psychological impacts of FGC on the girls they cut. It often takes place in unsterile, domestic environments, using unsafe tools.

Increasingly in certain settings around the world, girls undergo FGC at the hands of trained health care providers due to the mistaken belief that the procedure is safer when medicalised.

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